2011 was a good year & investing.

I managed to visit 25 countries in 2011, highlights would be seeing the last of the mountain gorilla’s in rwanda’s cloud forests, safari’s around africa, Easter Island, Machu Picchu, Bhoutan, Anchor Wat and of course Egypt, hard to beat being fed wine while touring the 3400 year old temple of luxor by moonlight followed by dinner in the temple complex.

While all this was going on, POF nearly doubled in size last year we hit a record of 50,000 signups on sunday! We also got a tech team and some administrators, We launched in a bunch of non English speaking countries, created mobile apps, created our own chat system and redesigned the site a few times! Just goes to show you can run an internet company from anywhere.

On the business side we’ve invested millions into other sites last year some with millions of users. We acquired a couple of companies and formed a few some new ones outside of the dating space. We’ve set aside about 10M to acquire other companies this year or to invest in things. What i’m looking for are dating companies in the mobile space, non english speaking countries or something that can help us lift our average revenue per user.. IE a paid site we can send a lot of traffic to and it converts.

We are also looking for companies that have at least 100k users, if you don’t have 100k users it means you don’t have a product anyone wants. We are looking to help other companies grow very fast, we aren’t looking to help companies design/build a product and then figure out how to get users for them. What we look for is companies that have already have traction and can turn into large companies.

24 Responses to “2011 was a good year & investing.”

Does over 100k+ users during a month count? If so, I have real estate rental listing website with over 200k listings that has lots of potential and is generating a nice profit each month. However, the problem I have is that I can’t take it to the next level without quitting my full-time gig. Care to invest so I can solve that? Oh and do I get bonus points if I’m Canadian? :)

THe comment by @AM above says it all about my ever-growing confusion with this new century I’ve found myself in.
At the VERY WORST @AM’s figures would have to produce over $100,000 per year (based only on a value of ONE DOLLAR PER VISITOR – per YEAR – not month.
I would expect that even taking a zero off these claims, in the real world, he should be making that amount.

THEN
as for the Markus enterprise, the growth rate is mind-boggling for these times and the competitiveness of the dating market.

It behooves me to ask (never expecting an answer of course):

Markus, your nett profit in the good ol’ days was phenomenal (virtually zero acquisition cost, virtually zero capital cost, no deadly staff overheads), what is it like today?

In my many decades of (admittedly olde worlde ) business experience R.O.I. drops like a stone with expansion.
Worse, rapid outsourcing for turnover usually presages the imminent collapse of organisations not in the Bankers Coffee Club.

Yours is a saga for which the only prior near comparison I recall in recent history (outside the chicanery of the U.S. Stock Market) is the weird rise and rise of Donald Trump, who I hasten to add, doesn’t seem anywhere near as clever as you! :-)

WOW! Some of you individuals hiding behind your computers need to come outside and enjoy the fresh air, get a hug, and ask your mommy to bake you cookies.

It doesn’t take a psych major to figure out some of you have a classic case of “Hater-itis”. You are full of anger because what, you didn’t think of POF? You aren’t making any money off of any of your ideas? So you lash out at other people who actually got off their asses and did something with their ideas?

If you hate the owner and the site so much, whether it’s free or not, why are you on it? Why did you go out of your way to find his blog, READ it, and then comment?? With such bitter attitudes I DOUBT you even have a dating life with a fish or your hand.

I totally agree with your comment, people these days are too quick to slag somebody off and find the negative in everything. I think everyone would soon have something to moan about if he started charging to use pof period. I say good on him for setting it up and making himself a fortune, and if I had the comuting know-how i’d do it myself.

Hi – I think we have something that might be interesting. UK only, 266,000 purely mobile users. We seem to share some similar strategies and employ the same back end technology. Our service sits somewhere in between what pof and match etc do and employs pay as you go micro payment mechanic with no subs or advertising. Happy to tell you more if you wish. Might be an opportunity to make some money from your mobile traffic if nothing else.

I was extremely pleased to discover this site. I want to to thank you
for ones time just for this wonderful read!! I definitely loved every little bit of it and
i also have you bookmarked to look at new stuff on your site.

Hi Marcus,
chatimity.com is a social networking site built around chat and finding new friends. With 100k+ monthly active users, most of them heavily engaged. Would that be interesting to you wrt this post. Reply on my email below.